Mayor Stephen Wukela delivered a briefing today, regarding the status of COVID-19 in Florence. One of the main takeaways was the fact that new cases of coronavirus has grown sharply in Florence.
DEHEC reports that Florence County has 1628 cases, with an alarming rise of new cases in recent days. There was a 9% increase in reported cases yesterday alone.
According to the NY TIMES, Florence now ranks 15th in the nation, in the daily rate of increase of new cases of COVID-19. Nearly 40% of those new cases were reported by persons under the age of 44.
Florence has 3 times the per capita infection rate of Horry County; Florence has 2x the infection rate of Charleston; nearly the same infection rate of that of Richland County.
The mayor cited the possible root cause of this spike of new cases in Florence, is the lack of social distancing, with young people going to parties with family and friends, people still going to live church services, stores are packed. Mayor Wukela urges us to take COVID-19 seriously, and understand the outbreak has not subsided. While it's not a cause for panic, he asks Florence to practice social distancing.
WPDE ABC 15 did an article, titled "Most of SC has flattened the curve, here are the counties that haven't", and Florence was featured in that article. Read more here: https://wpde.com/news/coronavirus/most-of-sc-has-flattened-the-curve-here-are-the-counties-that-havent
Photo: WPDE/Media partner